How many times
by Sabet
Summary: It was harder to forget a day in September when his nosebleed had only just stopped and his head still throbbed and every news station was showing towers collapsing.


How many times can you tell the same story and still have it mean something?

How many times can you watch the same footage of the same tower burning from the same fire, see the same smoke coming from the same windows, see the same people running down the same streets with the same destruction behind them?

How many times can you swear to never forget?

America had forgotten about "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember the Maine." He had forgotten the stabbing migraine on the day of infamy, had forgotten the bombings in the basement of the World Trade Center, had almost (but not quite) forgotten about Oklahoma City (because when nineteen children die, Americans pay attention).

It was harder to forget a day in September when his nosebleed had only just stopped and his head still throbbed and every news station was showing towers collapsing.

Not every _television_ station, though. PBS didn't stop showing children's shows. Somewhere in the back of America's mind, buried deep behind the panic and the fear and the confusion and the _who hates me this much_, he was grateful that if he couldn't take it anymore, there was always Sesame Street.

(No one knew anything that day. People thought it was had to have been just a small plane. There was just no way that a commercial pilot could hit a building. There was no way they would do it on purpose.)

The shopping network started airing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where it was the same footage but at least the news anchors didn't sound so panicked. America watched that instead, curled up in a ball on his couch. His phone rang more than once, but he couldn't bring himself to move his arm to answer. His head throbbed and the same towers kept falling over and over on the TV and he was just so emotionally beaten that he couldn't help but cry.

(News websites went to text-only with links to pictures. It saved bandwidth and loadtime, so people could get the latest news immediately, those that weren't glued to NBC and CNN already.)

England played "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the changing of the guard. America cried.

France declared to the world, "Nous Sommes Tous Américains." Italy echoed it. America cried.

Sweden abandoned his neutrality, just for this. America cried.

Iran held a candlelight vigil. America cried.

Canada took in the planes, the confused Americans and foreigners who only wanted to go home and didn't understand why they were in Toronto, not New York, and gave them shelter while they waited for horrible days on end. They learned why they weren't home. America cried.

(They evacuated other skyscrapers. They sent children home from school early. The New York Stock Exchange closed not long after it opened. Every flight landed and didn't take off again for several days. President Bush kept reading to second graders. No one explained anything. No one knew anything.)

How many times can the same list of names be read?

(The youngest children to grow up fatherless are in the third grade.)

How many times can the country stand united?

(Flags flew at half-mast across Europe. Impromptu memorials sprang up at embassies the world over.)

How many times can you tell the same story?

Not enough.

_Every generation is defined by a moment when you never forget where you were. There was Pearl Harbor, the JFK assassination, and now 9/11._

_I was eight years old. The only memory I have of the day itself is a boy shouting, "If one more plane hits a building we're all going to die before we're ten!"_

_I've learned the pain of that day, though. I know the pictures of smoke, and I still feel a tremendous _feeling_ when I see the pictures of flags against ash. I teared up when I saw the video of the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace._

_In history as a whole, was this day any worse than any other catastrophe? No. Someday, will it simply be observed with the same impersonal solemnity than Pearl Harbor? Yes._

_But for now, even nine years later, the wounds are still fresh._

_God bless America. Et dona nobis pacem._


End file.
